


Interlude

by yeaka



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, M/M, Other, Personification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Enterprise watches its contents play inside it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Had a moment in the car to write and word-doodled this~
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

The USS Enterprise doesn’t understand the creatures that fill it, but it loves each tiny thing like children, like the gods that built it, fragile, fleshy beasts though they are. It wraps its metal walls around the gas they breathe, cradles them and keeps them warm, keeps them from blowing out into the vacuum of space. It takes them from one home in the universe to another, and it watches them, in its way. It doesn’t always understand what it’s seeing. The one that’s peach, gold, black, and little spots of blue, sits in the cocoon that rises from the floor. There are many cocoons on the Enterprise, many little holders, little cups, for its creatures to sit in. This one is in the center at the very top, right under the clear circle that looks out into the stars. 

Most days, most nights, most all of the increments the Enterprise has learned to measure with—that the creatures have taught it—the Enterprise is filled with them. It bursts with movement, with _life_ (the concept the Enterprise struggles with the most) and they change their positions with one another, but always there is _something_. The great circle at the top is no exception. The Enterprise calls this the Bridge, because they tell it so. When the little ones ask, the voice of the computer that throbs through its veins trills that it is the Main Bridge, and the Enterprise, like a nervous system, like a brain, trusts that it is so. 

The mostly-golden one that the Enterprise lovingly knows as its _Captain_ is in its Bridge, curled up in its central cocoon-chair with a cup of Synthesized hot chocolate. A small offering the Enterprise can make. He seems so small, now, like they do when they are younger, when they stumble and fall to tell the Enterprise where to go. Its Captain is one of the youngest ones the Enterprise has in high positions—the Enterprise has the records of all the little ones somewhere in it, can know them, even if it cannot _know_. Time is something it’s grown to see. Many of the ones on the Enterprise have only a few years to them, such a small span in what the Enterprise knows it can last. The little Captain sits alone in the dark, drinking his rearranged molecules and staring out at the stars. From knowing him, the Enterprise is sure that the Captain is as fond of those stars as the Enterprise is of him. 

The stars are all on one side, basking the Enterprise in a pale, cool glow, and on the other side is the planet, the one the little human came from. Many of them came from. The Enterprise is secured in metal arms, repairs running through its lower decks, the tingling of upgrades lilting along its surface. But the Bridge is clear, and if the Enterprise could birth fingers inside itself, it would wrap the golden Captain up in plush, woven fibers to keep it warm. The Captain, the Enterprise knows, is looking out for it. 

Then the glass partitions part, drawing aside with a curt sweeping noise. The Captain turns his neck, and the blue and black one that serves beside him strolls quietly aboard. His arms are folded behind his back, and his sleek hair reflects the blinking lights of the Enterprise’s functions. He is the First Officer, the Science Officer, one of different, rare descent. He looks so very like the gold human, except that he hears differently, or at least, seems to be shaped differently around the things he uses to hear. He is often on the Enterprise’s Bridge too, and when he is inside, he and his Captain, the two highest that keep the Enterprise well, feel like they belong here. The Enterprise could close its doors and keep them in it forever.

But the Enterprise loves them too much for that, enjoys the way they greet one another, their strange human language a buzz in its halls. The Enterprise knows what the sounds mean, of course, what each word encompasses, but that doesn’t make their communication any easier to interpret. The Enterprise simply houses them while they talk to one another, quiet and hushed, growing closer and closer, until the blue is at the gold’s side. 

The Captain attempts to make room in his seat, and the Enterprise wants to expand itself to house both of them in the angular cocoon the Captain so seems to love, but it cannot. It would ask the Engineer that feeds it to do so, but he isn’t aboard. It’s a shame, really—Scotty rarely leaves the Enterprise. The Enterprise isn’t particularly concerned with what Scotty’s file says he is designated; he calls himself Scotty to the Enterprise, and so the Enterprise listens and will call its master what he should like. He patches the Enterprise up when it bleeds and pets it when it purrs. He should make this Bridge seat larger, so that the two of them, the Captain and the First Officer, can be one like they so clearly want. 

The First Officer protests, at first, hovering away while the Captain laughs (such a sweet sound that the Enterprise puts on record and plays again and again at bases like these where it misses its Captain, funny, cute little creature though he is) and the First Officer shakes his head and will not be sucked in. The Captain is irresistible and tugs at his First Officer’s sleeve. The Enterprise knows that the First Officer will give in long before he does so. 

Eventually, the little, pale/black creature folds, his adoration for the one that commands them all even greater than the Enterprise’s. The mug of hot chocolate is set on the floor. The First Officer lets himself be pulled into the Captain’s lap, and the Captain strokes his thighs and pets him and calls him wonderful things, things that make the Enterprise twitter and glow with the pleasantries of housing paradise. When they are like this they make the Enterprise want to fog at the windows, want to whisk them away and carry them somewhere special, to the ends of the universe, where they can simply be alone. ...But the Enterprise couldn’t leave Scotty, and Scotty isn’t aboard, nor the odd little thing unlike all the others that hands Scotty his screws and wrenches...

They’re nuzzling like the pets they covet, touching each other all over, and if the Enterprise had a detached head it would tilt it. What must it feel like, to be made of flesh and to _touch_ and to _feel_ , to crave the attention of another. The Captain is always wanting his First Officer, pleading for him in the depths of the night, always seeking him out through the halls. The First Officer likes to be caught—he never quite runs like he pretends to.

And somewhere, they always meet in the middle. They always find each other. Their tiny fingers intertwine, and their mouths slip together like giving one another life. Now, they shed their second skins and rearrange all their odd limbs and bodies, the First Officer straddling his master. His palms brush his Captain’s shoulders and his lips brush his Captain’s cheek, and he begs softly, quietly, full of shame and broken resolve. The Captain strokes him and coos at him and fills him with sweet things, tells him tales—everything will be alright, so good, don’t stop, like this, _you’re perfect._ The First Officer begins to rock, and he’s picked up and pulled down by the hands that hold him so tight, that promise him love, love, love. The Captain can seem to do nothing else. He tells his First Officer how beautiful he is, how wonderful he is and how much he’s loved. The First Officer is a quivering mess of want.

When their noises hitch, the Captain’s is loud and the First Officer’s is quiet, words that are their designations mixed inside. They don’t talk to the Enterprise like Scotty does, but now their song seems to include it, something special between them, out in space like they all should be.

They fall down later. They are sweaty now, naked and bare, something raw and pure. They’ve done things that a ship cannot, not even with as advanced a computer system as the Enterprise holds, and it watches them curiously, fondly, rejoicing in the pleasure under their skin. They look at one another like it’s painful to be in two separate bodies. There are more words, more kisses. 

And then the shells are tugged back on, and they’re trying to fit in the holder, the two of them together. They’re half atop one another and tangled. The Enterprise is curious—they don’t usually stay.

But they ask it, the Captain in his strong voice, _“Computer, lock bridge doors.”_ The words barely take a second to register—things the Enterprise must unravel.

A beep of acknowledgment sounds, and the Enterprise closes all its partitions, slides its locks down, blocks its lungs from rising to the top level: the home of its most precious possessions. They are safe now, alone, just with each other and their thrumming connection, spoken not through their mouths but their minds. They’re joined in a way that the Enterprise can’t touch, but the Enterprise can see all their reactions. They smile, and they nuzzle, and they purr and cuddle. They’re cute, pretty little things, soft and bright. The Enterprise dims the lights for them, lets them sleep. 

The Enterprise feels whole, and it stands watch of its prizes while it waits for its next command.


End file.
